I am posting a question on behalf of my father-in-law who would like to have a discussion, but is a little shaky using the forum. Hopefully that is okay, if not please tell me. The question -
Hello, anyone and everyone. I am a 90 year old war veteran. I have seen a lot of misery and horror in my time – but the current catastrophes, i.e. earthquakes, floods and tornadoes have surpassed all previous calamities. So here is Phil’s thought for the day “Is the almighty not concerned for his children, or is this his method of controlling the earth’s population?
I also posted this question on a blog I created for Phil at hxxp://phil-thoughts.com if anyone would like to respond directly there.
When you say recent events have surpassed all previous calamities I wonder how accurate that is. In many parts of the world we’ve not been keeping records that long, so famines and natural disasters could have killed more people than we in the West realised.
Plus events like the 1918 Flu pandemic or even back as far as the Black Death seem on a par with anything in recent decades.
The “almighty” is not concerned because he doesn’t exist.
That out of the way, your two choices are: “Is the almighty not concerned for his children, or is this his method of controlling the earth’s population.” For the latter, I would have to say no. Recent wars and natural disasters don’t kill enough to slow down population growth. He could do much better if his intent is to control population. For the former, see my first line.
The current catastrophes aren’t worse than they have been in the past, they are just better reported. If we could get streaming video of the starvation of the potato famine or, God forbid, WW I, we would be horrified at how bad things were then. The fact that we have such rich information on the misery and horror of the world and yet manage to continue to survive, prosper and help each other says a lot for the human spirit.
Please thank your father-in-law for his service to our country.
And as other posters have stated, calamities are probably not getting worse. In fact, it’s likely that disease calamities are getting better. The Black Death killed off about 1/3rd of Europe’s population. The flu epidemic killed off 10’s of millions in the early 1900s.
Even recently, an earthquake in China in 1976 probably killed about 500,000 people, although we’ll never know for sure.
Stalin’s and Mao’s forced collectivism starved 10’s of millions to death in Russia, Eastern Europe and China in early-to-mid 1900s.
Lord only knows how much damage Krakatoa did, or whatever killed off the dinosaurs. But suffice to say, whatever it was makes Hurricane Katrina’s damage, or even the Galveston hurricane disaster, pale in comparison.
Here’s wikipedias list of disaster death tolls. I think its pretty hard to say that current disasters are much worse then previous ones, especially if you consider the fact that there are a lot more people around to be killed now. I suspect there’s just a lot more reporting now with much more heartwrenching video footage
And none of the disasters are anywhere near large enough to have anything more then a infintesimal effect on the total global population levels.
So without getting into the God stuff, I’d say the answer to your Dads question is that regardless of his impression, disasters aren’t getting worse, and even if they were, they aren’t any where near large enough to effect total global population levels.
You need to look at death rates more than total numbers. The Black Death of the 1300s killed 1 out of 3 people in Europe. That would take over a 100,000,000 deaths to match that rate in the U.S. today.
Think about 1816 (a.k.a. Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death), the year without a summer. We haven’t experienced anything close to that in the last century.
So, my vote is that it an effect of increased information flow, ratings drives, and human psychology. Just like the fear of crime as crime rates fall and the fear of child kidnapper and poisoned Halloween candy it is matter of perception, and not reality.
Things are pretty much normal as far as natural disasters are concerned. We just notice them more with a global, 24/7 news cycle that needs to fill air time.
It is also worth noting that almost nobody who lives in a straw hut is at risk of being killed by an earthquake. Earthquakes don’t kill people, buildings do. Recent earthquakes have wreaked havoc in places that have high density housing and no or poor (or poorly enforced) building codes. Such places have become more numerous in recent decades.
If the almighty wanted to control the Earth’s population, he could do so without causing a single death: simply strike 1 out of every X females infertile, and the population would plummet within a generation.
Also one of the more destructive of the recent Earthquakes was in China. Given their one-child policy, you’d think the almighty would give them a pass on his campaign to cull extraneous humans via natural disasters.
I’m interested in finding out what your grandfather would say he bases his premise on, that catastrophes have surpassed what’s happened in the past. Why does he think that’s so?
I have to admit a few months ago I had a “feeling” that there seemed to be an unusual number of natural disasters lately. So, I looked it up and found all was in line with normal amounts and we are just exposed to more news of them.
I imagine an elderly man has a lot of time to watch the news so came to the same feeling.
Indeed that we can find stories written about this suggests that a lot of people were having that feeling and the stories looked into it and found all was well (or at least as well as it ever is).
Media coverage, quite clearly. The OP’s father in law is hardly unique in this regard; we are being bombarded with non stop coverage of disaster, misery, and horror, and news outlets are constantly one-upping each other in efforts to terrorize their viewers. Its not just disasters and wars, but common things like accidents and crime, that are getting round-the-clock coverage. A LOT of people are convinced things are getting worse.
Good news is no news.
Consider this; a few years ago we had a really bad hurricane season . The press dubbed in the year of the hurricane. There was speculation that hurricanes were getting worse, that global warming would soon utterly lay waste to the Gulf of Mexico. But how many hurricanes were there last year? How many have there been this year? They’re been pretty mild hurricane years - but that doesn’t make the news.
The OP’s father’s YOUTH was by far a worse time to live. He was born in 1920, I’d assume, and lived through a Depression that made this recession seem like a minor inconvenience, then lived through, and probably served in, the most destructive and savage war in the history of the world. And he was born just a bit too late to enjoy a worldwide plague. There were hurricanes, typhoons, tsunamis, famines, plagues and disasters, but back then you din’t have 24/7 coverage.
My mom is convinced that kids are being snatched up and mutilated in record numbers, and “stranger danger” is a huge threat to children. A few years ago when my niece was starting to walk and talk, mom was pretty candid about wanting to instill a fear of people in her, “to keep her safe.”
Anyone surprised that she watches a lot of Nancy Grace? :rolleyes:
Thanks for all the insightful replies so quickly. I will take these to my FIL (actually his name if Phil) and post his replies. It may take a bit of time as he has good days and bad days.
As someone who has read this forum for a decade, I had a good idea of what the responses would be, but wanted Phil to be able to ask his question in his way. I know my own Dad takes it as a matter of a fact that everything in the world is getting worse.
I think that the part of the question Phil was more interested in discussing is “If there is a God, then why do so many bad things happen?” Of course if you (we) are atheists, there may not be much of a discussion.
Phil was honored in Holland 4 years ago for being a war hero. They flew him back for a celebration.
If your FIL wants an answer to why a benevolent God would let bad things happen, theologians have been trying to wrestle with that question for more than 2000 years. That branch of philosophy even has a name: theodicy. The reason it’s still being wrestled with is that no one has come up with a decent answer.
ETA: I say all this with the highest respect for your FIL’s war record. Was that WWII? My own father was in WWII, in the Navy in the Pacific. No hero awards, he was just a low-level guy who drove those boats that go up to the shore and the front drops open to let the soldiers out. But it’s kind of amazing that someone could live through those times and think that things are worse now.
No, assuming there is an almight, he has shown no indication that he is concerned about his children in any meaningful way.
All of the recent calamities in the past decade have barely put a dent in the population.
Your father in law may be too young to remember (bet he doesn’t hear that too often), but in 1918 influenza killed between 20 and 100 million people.
There are in fact a lot more people these days. An a lot of those people have moved into flood plains, seismic zones, coastal areas and other locations subject to things like storms, tsunamis, earthquakes, and volcanos. And since we have 24 hour news coverage, we can watch it all on TV.
I went to a lecture by John Stossel once that had some fascinating charts in it…basically, he dually-ranked
Fear of an event happening (e.g. child abduction)
against
Actual frequency of its occurrence.
The fascinating thing was that they were almost inversely correlated. That is, the things that terrify most American adults the most, happen the least.
Stranger child abduction was right near the top of the list. This was right after the Elizabeth Smart case in Utah.
Near the bottom of the list was car crashes. Which of course, happen much more frequently.
Child abduction by a stranger happens about once per week across the US, if I remember correctly. Or about 50 times per year. There are many more child abductions by known relations, the most common being a custody dispute between a mother and father. But children are about at the same risk of dying from bee stings, or getting hit by lightning, as they are to be abducted by a total stranger.
One of the themes of the speech was that people are irrationally terrified by things that are completely out of their control. Much more so than the facts or data would suggest.
My wife’s Dad.